Sustainable urban systems and just FEW nexus transitions Water, food, and energy systems are providing fundamental services for human wellbeing. However, the current management of these systems is often wasteful, creating inefficiencies that need to be urgently addressed to reduce the over-consumption of our limited natural resources. Here, Jana Fried, Adina Paytan and Waste FEW ULL project participants look at lessons from the Waste FEW ULL project for reducing waste and increasing efficiency in the FEW nexus.
Solutions to waste management in informal settlements in South Africa South Africa has retained some of the unjust laws following the Apartheid system, but rapid urbanisation has resulted in burgeoning informal settlements, often situated on the periphery of major cities and towns, where clean water is often inaccessible and waste management is limited. Clean water is the main catalyst for the projects conducted by the Waste FEW ULL team, Kevin Winter, Adina Paytan, Sue Charlesworth, and Jana Fried. The motivation for developing the ULL arose out of concern about the contaminated water and its impact on human health and the environment. Rising demand for land and houses has made people struggle to overcome existing income and wealth disparities, with high levels of unemployment and poverty remaining, leaving many only able to live in so-called informal settlements. The concept of Urban Living Labs (ULLs) has advanced from centres that were largely seen as test beds of innovation to become sites of learning and places where stakeholders can co-create solutions to address critical issues and challenges.
Zero food waste city 2049: Identifying barriers to transition pathways Daniel Black, Ian Roderick, Adina Paytan, Sue Charlesworth and Joy Carey from an Urban Living Lab in the UK have tested newly integrated systems approaches and valuation methods to understand how to reduce the city's food waste. Food waste costs the UK billions of pounds each year and much of it is avoidable. The challenge for the WASTE FEW ULL research project was to produce and test methods for identifying inefficiencies in the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus in urban settings. Looking in particular at Bristol city, which throws away 48,000 tonnes of food waste each year, the team looked into how they could transform Bristol into a sustainable food city. Stakeholder concerns arose including the nutrient overload problem in water systems and the economic recovery of phosphate; the large amount of food waste from the city linked to food security issues; the energy and carbon footprint of the digestate produced from the anaerobic digestors; the economic challenges of reducing food waste; the plastic contamination of waste streams; sewage system blockages; and the difficulties of recycling sewage and wastewater. This research looks at the challenge of phosphorous recapture from sewage through extensive discussions agreed to shift the project focus to residential food waste reduction and processing (and the associated plastic contamination). The team eventually began looking at the critical concept of resilience and economic efficiency, working to substantially reduce inefficiencies in a city-regions FEW nexuses.
Urban living laboratories: Opportunities for modelling sustainability transitions Here, a group of academics present Urban Living Laboratories to study sustainable food production systems, using systems dynamic modelling to analyse policy alternatives. Urban Living Laboratories (ULLs) have shown first promising signs of being valuable platforms for understanding transition phenomena. To address our time's diverse grand societal challenges (like climate change and biodiversity loss), we must transition to truly sustainable systems, possibly the most significant shift facing modern civilisations. Such transitions involve coupled technological, social, economic and environmental shifts and demand transformative approaches with new forms of organisation and management.
Not Available ; Many coastal communities rely on living marine resources for livelihoods and food security. These resources are commonly under stress from overfishing, pollution, coastal development and habitat degradation. Climate change is an additional stressor beginning to impact coastal systems and communities, but may also lead to opportunities for some species and the people they sustain. We describe the research approach for a multi-country project, focused on the southern hemisphere, designed to contribute to improving fishing community adaptation efforts by characterizing, assessing and predicting the future of coastal-marine food resources, and codeveloping adaptation options through the provision and sharing of knowledge across fast-warming marine regions (i.e. marine 'hotspots'). These hotspots represent natural laboratories for observing change and concomitant human adaptive responses, and for developing adaptation options and management strategies. Focusing on adaptation options and strategies for enhancing coastal resilience at the local level will contribute to capacity building and local empowerment in order to minimise negative outcomes and take advantage of opportunities arising from climate change. However, developing comparative approaches across regions that differ in political institutions, socio-economic community demographics, resource dependency and research capacity is challenging. Here, we describe physical, biological, social and governance tools to allow hotspot comparisons, and several methods to evaluate and enhance interactions within a multi-nation research team. Strong partnerships within and between the focal regions are critical to scientific and political support for development of effective approaches to reduce future vulnerability. Comparing these hotspot regions will enhance local adaptation responses and generate outcomes applicable to other regions. ; Not Available
